I recently replayed Ocarina of Time (the N64 version - sadly no 3DS for me!). It's still a wonderful game, and the in-dungeon design is still fantastic - but I couldn't help but think that its combat system, although perfectly fine for the game's needs, could be improved by swapping it for one from a dedicated third-person combat game like Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta. Also, having played Shadow of the Colossus, Epona the horse feels extremely clunky and underused. So with that in mind, I got thinking about what you could add to make a game like Ocarina of Time even better...

ADVENTURINGSo at the core of the game we'd have a third-person fantasy adventure with the basic "overworld and dungeons" structure and puzzle balance of a Zelda game, but we'd add...... dialogue trees in the style of a point-and click adventure game, preferably as funny and memorable as Monkey Island.... the horse riding system of Shadow of the Colossus.

COMBATTING... a melee combat system of the quality and depth of Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta. I'm not sure which I'd prefer: NG1/Black's weighting towards defensive blocking, or Bayonetta's very dodge-focused system. I love 'em both! (I'm less keen on NG2's more constantly-aggressive pace, though.)... Halo's simple but effective "some weapons are strong against shields, others strong against flesh" and "minions panic when their leaders are killed" mechanics. (Yes, the former could work in a Zelda-esque fantasy setting - for "shields" read "magic barriers", and the game could feature swords or arrows imbued with particular spell properties.)

PRESENTATION-ING... Bayonetta also has the best cutscene-skipping system I've seen: one button-press brings up options to resume or skip (plus there's also an undocumented instant skip shortcut). It's something that every cutscene-heavy game should adopt!... also swiped from Bayonetta, a practice mode on every loading screen. (Somehow Platinum Games avoided infringing Namco's patent on loading screen minigames.)... the replay and screenshot system of Halo Reach, as well as its depth of online statistics-tracking.... a wave-after-wave combat-only "horde" survival mode as customisable as Halo Reach's Firefight.... New Game Plus.... enough Easter eggs to put Metal Gear Solid 3 to shame.... the challenge customisability of GoldenEye and Perfect Dark's unlockable cheats and difficulty sliders, and Halo's skulls.... Daily and Weekly Challenges like Halo Reach. Although building such things into the game kinda removes the "self-imposed" in "self-imposed challenge", I'm all for anything that increases a game's replay value by encouraging us to attempt difficult things out of the ordinary that we might not normally try.

I think I'd prefer the combat of something like Demon's Souls with that type of game. Otherwise the theme of the game would be all over the place with high speed combat and... horse riding and block puzzles.

Ah, such a relaxing sunse-OHCRAPANENEMY FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT! Ah, back on my horse. How serene. OHGODDODGE! FIGHTFIGHT! How do I open this door? Hmmmm...

For me the thing that really killed a lot of excitement in Twilight Princess, was the lack of anything useful to find in the world. Even halfway through the game I had max money all the time, and there was never anything in that hidden away chest that would possibly be useful or fun. It was always just more goddamn rupies spilling out everywhere, or heart pieces, which only helped make an extremely easy game even less of a challenge.

So if I were to mix Zelda with something else it would be something like Baldur's Gate or any of the more 'western' rpgs, that have unique items or quests that aren't part of the main story to check out/collect. And of course I'd agree with psion that Demon Soul's' combat would be a big improvement. Lets crank that difficulty up a few (hundred) notches too, see what happens.

To be honest, I admit not all of the things in that list would necessarily work together perfectly. I just began by thinking "I wonder what would happen if you transplanted a more detailed combat system into a Zelda game?" and went on to think of as many things that added replay value and a general feeling of polish to some of my favourite games.

psion wrote:I think I'd prefer the combat of something like Demon's Souls with that type of game. Otherwise the theme of the game would be all over the place with high speed combat and... horse riding and block puzzles.

Ah, such a relaxing sunse-OHCRAPANENEMY FIGHTFIGHTFIGHT! Ah, back on my horse. How serene. OHGODDODGE! FIGHTFIGHT! How do I open this door? Hmmmm...

It needn't be any more jarring than the fights in a normal Zelda game - a few enemies when you enter each room, with the occasional enemy harassing you afterwards, with maybe a few sections throughout the game where you need to fight more enemies for more sustained periods. What it would take from Ninja Gaiden would be the spectacle of the attacks, and the variety of moves available to you - not necessarily the intensity and challenge.

Magnanimous wrote:How would New Game+ work in a Zelda game? Half of the puzzles only exist because you don't have <item> at that point...

Maybe in NG+ playthroughs you'd lose puzzle items but you'd retain all the weapon power-ups, so you could have fun smashing the game's earliest, weakest enemies with your most powerful arms? Or perhaps it would be like Metal Gear Solid, where the things you retain when you choose to load a completed save file rather than start a new game are either just cosmetic (MGS2's sunglasses) or completely optional, but make life easier (MGS3's camouflage suits and infinite ammo gun). It goes back to that feeling of polish in a game's presentation - I just appreciate it when subsequent playthroughs acknowledge that I've already completed them once.

I just watched a friend play Scrap Mechanic for a few minutes. The crafting system is interesting, and has several components that can be combined creatively to make contraptions and stuff. I'd be interested in seeing this game mixed with Factorio. I mean, I wouldn't play it, but I think the kinds of people who are interested in Factorio and crafting games would be interested. You'd have to have a factory to manufacture the individual components, then ship them around on a monorail or something to warehouses and distribution centers. The idea in my mind would make for a huge undertaking unless it was multiplayer.

I would combine World of Warcraft and Internet forums: An MMORPG where you can either play in the game or on the forums. The forums let you switch between any characters you've created to have their portrait show when you post as them in RPs. The game is pretty much like WoW but with way more mission options than just, "Kill the bosses." You can now do diplomacy, explore the histories and cultures of the races and even flirt with them or show off your special transmogrification things in fashion shows. Which the original game has but I'd want them to be way better. And every race in the game is available, you can side with other factions besides Alliance or Horde (Hi Pandaren Lorewalkers can I join you? <3) and you can even make dialogue choices when you talk to important NPCs to really customize your characters' personalities and reactions to the world. As well: The choices you make alter the quests and story line so that it's a different ending every time you play.

I give mercy to Deathwing. He reforms and stops trying to get it on with Alexstrasza against her will. The Black Dragonflight is welcomed as temporary allies of the Horde and now we can ride cool black dragon mounts into battles yay! ;D

Amy Lee wrote:Just what we all need... more lies about a world that never was and never will be.

Azula to Long Feng wrote:Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player.

Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conquerors: Shire-Breeland-Rivendell-Lothlorien alliance versus Angmar-Nurn-Mordor alliance RTS conducted at the single-player level, with messengers delivering info to and orders from captains, generals and kings.

Timing would be hard. You'd have to get all 10,000 players online at the same time.

...

Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty (because the Hill Street Blues stuff just didn't appeal) and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, so I could be in a fellowship with all of the Oxbox / Oxtra crew and Ellen could squee at stuff a lot.

...

LotRO with something that'd let me do what it doesn't, in

Spoiler:

the scene where you meet that Angmarim lass for the third time and there's yet another old man trying to get one of you to kill the other and he's promised her a name in return for her help. She fought well, she survived alone as an outcast in Angmar, she made it to Forochel and survived in the icy wastes there all alone, she tracked you from there to the banks of the Anduin via Moria and Lothlorien and she's still going strong. She's officially awesome. She wants a name? "How about Willow Swanpool? Willow because Breelander names tend to be flowers and trees and willow trees are famous for not giving up easily. A willow tree can be uprooted by a storm and toppled into a river and will put down roots in the riverbed and grow right there in the water, and willow can be just about anything, a weapon, a chair, a child's bed, a basket, armour, a bird's home, ... Swanpool? It's my family name. I'd be honoured to call you my sister, and you can tell the people of Bree I said so."

The game doesn't provide the option to say that, or to rescue that one little Goblin who was always polite and respectful, more so to me than the larger ones were to him.

...

The writing teams behind the Narmelleth storyline in LotRO and the "Going Rogue" Hero-Vigilante-Villain-Rogue-Hero stories in City of Heroes, one of those worlds where success or failure and path choice actually matter (because I still haven't forgiven Turbine for burning the Glenden Wood we saved) and steampunk. Not "stick a brass cog on it" steampunk but actual "get a bunch of steam engine enthusiasts to design things and make them work" steampunk.

I want Animal Crossing Pocket Camp mixed with a serious RPG, the ones I know are Fallout 3 and Oblivion.

The mobile game, for small children, has a lot of resource management mechanics that I'm finding pretty engaging. I want the same exact game, but without the mobile game wait times, and more narrative than I meet Animal Friends and they are nice to me. I like "I meet Animal Friends, and they are nice to me" but I also kind of miss early Animal Crossing where your neighbors could steal from you and get mad when you miss appointments and stuff.

There's a lot of games where I'd like more of a Sims component to the NPCs. It seems like even when they're customize-able, or uniquely generated they're pretty static.

Some of the animal friends in DF will steal your stuff. Monkeys and Keas are well known for it, and those birds don't care about your walls.You can send some of your Dwarves out to make appointments in other cities as of recent versions.

Quite a few animal friends will bring you crafting materials, some will try to eat your face, and everybody in the world has a backstory and family tree.

Sims-like needs and wants are well covered, and different between people. That big-prize life goal to aim for is nifty too.

I've been meaning to try that out. It does seem like a resource management game that lends itself to emergent narrative, but it doesn't seem like it's character or story oriented, more of a virtual ant farm, sim city game. RPG games, and I guess Animal Crossing games are in that genre, have a point of view that's closer to the scale of a person, than the scale of a building or a city.

I also like that the flower breeding in Animal Crossing has semi Mendelian genetics which seems rare for video game mechanics, beyond like, "two level 2 turnips can create a level 3 turnip" .

I've been meaning to try that out. It does seem like a resource management game that lends itself to emergent narrative, but it doesn't seem like it's character or story oriented, more of a virtual ant farm, sim city game. RPG games, and I guess Animal Crossing games are in that genre, have a point of view that's closer to the scale of a person, than the scale of a building or a city.

There isn't a story as typically seen, since you're writing the story of the world, your fort and your dwarves as you go, and the only railroading going on is your minecart system. I tend to focus more on the fort and its architectural and mechanical splendor, but I also like to restrict immigration in the config file to only allow it when the population is below 7, so every dwarf is important and I can get to know them.

You can also run in adventure mode, and stay at the personal scale. Collect a couple companions if you like, or rouse a rabble of drunks from the tavern.Build your own cabin in the woods, or a bridge over a canyon if you've got a few days to spare and don't want to walk around it.

SuicideJunkie is right — in Dwarf Fortress, you build the story. The basics of the game aren’t all that hard, so the fun really lies in shaping the history of the world. While your fort is running, your actions effect what goes on in the outside world. Now that sending out squads has been added, you can have an even bigger effect on history than before. It’s now much easier to do stuff like provoke your civilization into a war with the elves than before. You could also go kill a dragon or something else that’s terrorizing a nearby town. In adventure mode, you may have a bit more of a direct impact on the world, but even in fort mode, you can cast a long shadow.

Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that I keep meaning to get back to some day - particularly if they ever add a decent interface (the interface is functional, but it is a lot like watching the Matrix without an interpreter program - and that carries through to player actions, not just discovering what the game is trying to show you). I completely understand that trying to maintain a polished interface while still constantly fiddling under the hood would be a massive increase in workload, and the game's a fantastic achievement - it does things that other games barely dream of - it's just a lot of work to learn it.

rmsgrey wrote:Dwarf Fortress is one of those games that I keep meaning to get back to some day - particularly if they ever add a decent interface (the interface is functional, but it is a lot like watching the Matrix without an interpreter program - and that carries through to player actions, not just discovering what the game is trying to show you). I completely understand that trying to maintain a polished interface while still constantly fiddling under the hood would be a massive increase in workload, and the game's a fantastic achievement - it does things that other games barely dream of - it's just a lot of work to learn it.

Regarding the interface — it’s really only the controls that are bad. It used to bug me, but I’ve played enough that it’s virtually instinctive now to do common stuff. They could be a lot better though.

The issue with graphics is trying to display it in just about any way other than simple tiles is going to be hard. It simulates so much, that packing everything into some kind of graphics seems to be a monumental task. What do you show, what do you not show? Different stuff is important to different people and at different times — sometimes it’s crucial to know what fluid it is that’s covering a dwarf’s limb (is it water? vomit? blood? booze? a flesh-melting toxin?). If you try and show that, how do you express the differences between them? That kind of stuff is why I’m 100% fine with the graphics basically just showing what is at what location (and some additional stuff about urgent needs — food, water, sleep, strange mood, etc). Knowing that all the specifics I might need are easily accessible in the same place is fine by me (I’d tell you how to get to it, but I never consciously have known it — it’s just muscle memory at this point.)

tangent here but- it keeps getting weirder to find out about literally any aspect of culture. I've played games with ASCII ..graphics? interfaces? and I have no idea what's a direct reference, and what has similar influences... and now i'm on a how to play youtube play list from 3 years ago, and it has Forty Videos, with "basic controls" in video 4, over fifty minutes in.

Character development and depth is kind of hard to pin down. DF is has put a lot of details into the individual dwarves and animals, but it's not real visible or tangible, Animal Crossing characters have one of four personality scripts and like one of 6 themes.

It's fascinating the way the brain connects to things. Recently I saw some screen grabs from the original Sims game, and they're so rough looking, but I have memories of being in that place. It's going to be a while before I get the hang of "reading" the Dwarf Fortress interface. I found a more concise tutorial, but instead of downloading the tutorial map I started my own game, half way up a mountain, roughly 4,000 ft above the nearest tree.

Back to combining games, what about model building kits with a game component? Like maybe just a choose your own adventure booklet and depending on how you go through it you pick different pieces or paints.

I want some one to take another crack at Spore. I guess what I want to see combined there is Wil Wright with a company that sucks less than EA.

cephalopod9 wrote:Back to combining games, what about model building kits with a game component? Like maybe just a choose your own adventure booklet and depending on how you go through it you pick different pieces or paints.

Do you mean a physical model building kit? or virtual?

If it's a virtual model, then Robocraft is a model building kit with a game component, just not the choose your adventure sort of game. People get really creative with Robocraft for competitive reasons and for fun/silly reasons.

If it's a virtual model, then Robocraft is a model building kit with a game component, just not the choose your adventure sort of game. People get really creative with Robocraft for competitive reasons and for fun/silly reasons.

I was thinking physical model building and crafts, but Robocraft also looks cool. The free-form building in Spore was one of the things I feel like could have been used a lot more.

The Labo games are currently Nintendo's super-casual style, but there's huge potential for other designers to do really interesting things with their own Labo kits and games. I could imagine an RPG where you create physical items, or puzzle/Escape the Room sort of game where you have create a device/devices to advance. I would keep an eye on it at least.

Robocraft - I played it a bit a couple years ago. Some things may have changed, but it's still going strong. I remember it being fun, unique, strong community involvement, and free (w/ microtransactions). It can be a little grindy and repetitive, but less so if you're really into the creative design aspect. A very small payment reduced the grindiness dramatically and was totally worth it to me. If you're the competitive sort, there's some depth/meta to gameplay and bot design.

I've been wanting a new space game for a while, in the Elite Dangerous/Descent: Freespace style, but with some of the more fun (to me) elements of Ark: Survival Evolved. Not the dinosaurs, but in the base building and raiding, and the effectiveness of unmounted combat.

With the right gear in Ark you could be very effective on the ground, to the point where a lot of times I didn't want a flying mount for pvp, because it felt limiting. Parachutes and grappling hooks gave you mobility, and the guns/explosives gave you bang. Empyrion: Galactic Survival was close, with the added bonus of building your own ships a la robocraft, but the balance was definitely skewed towards ships, and turret balance was all over the board.

Defending a base led to some of my favorite memories from Ark, and cracking someone else's base was a nice strategy problem most times. (Note, I liked to play on boosted rate servers, so recovery from base raids/pvp was much easier for everyone, I'm not a jerk) The trick was to find a balance between how long it took to level/tech up and make the base that made it worth defending, but not so much that you didn't care.

A way to add in some sort of pirate ship style boarding system is also lacking in space games too. Maybe a capital ship game with boarding pods? The crew jobs system in Sea of Thieves/Blackwake would make a fun bit for spaceships.

I've been following Star Citizen and hoping it'll deliver on some of this, but there's not much hope on the horizon if it doesn't.

I've been wanting a new space game for a while, in the Elite Dangerous/Descent: Freespace style, but with some of the more fun (to me) elements of Ark: Survival Evolved. Not the dinosaurs, but in the base building and raiding, and the effectiveness of unmounted combat.

I think I once built a repeating torpedo launcher in Space Engineers. I used that projector thing to create the blueprints of a warhead, gravity generator, mass, battery, and I think a brake, with the ship-mounted construction equipment next to it. Was quite unwieldy, but it slaughtered all the large ships that would pass within 20 km of me.

I think GravGuns are still at thing - gravity generators to collect material ejected from ports aimed at a central location, then several more that fire in sequence to eject the material in one direction. Scatters a little, but the fired material doesn't get detected by defensive points and basically just rips the enemy ship to shreds. Works best as I believe the small pieces ignore the universal 110m/s speed limit.

The thing in the video was firing one object. The larger ones I've seen fire about fifty objects of the same mass in such a way that they spread a little - the only real defense is gravity generators pointing outward to slow or deflect it, but they're usually not sufficient.

Doesn't work on planets, though. Not because it wouldn't work in theory - the artificial gravity generators don't work in a natural gravity field above, like .25 or something.

heuristically_alone wrote:I want to write a DnD campaign and play it by myself and DM it myself.

heuristically_alone wrote:I have been informed that this is called writing a book.